The present application relates to software and more specifically to software and accompanying graphical user interfaces for facilitating viewing information in tables or data grids, such as pivot tables or cross-tabular reports.
Tables, also called data grids, are employed in various demanding applications, including spreadsheets, databases, enterprise network pages, webpages, and so on. Such applications often demand feature rich tables and accompanying user interface controls for adjusting how data and what data is displayed in the tables and for rapidly conveying information about data summarized in a table.
A pivot table or cross-tabular report may provide functionality for rearranging data in a table, e.g., by enabling user repositioning of rows or columns or other portions of a table identified by row or column headers.
A pivot table may have hierarchically arranged headers at edges of the pivot table. Conventionally, an upper edge of a pivot table often displays column headers, while the left or right edge of a pivot table may display row headers. Each level in a header hierarchy may represent a layer, and each layer may have sub-layers, e.g., corresponding to one or more column or row headers. Accordingly, layers often correspond to data in a row or column or groups thereof.
Headers and accompanying data can be ambiguous. For example, a header or sub-header may not necessarily convey information pertaining to the type of data contained in the header or in the sub-header. The type of data in a header or sub-header may be identified by a label, often called a layer label.
Conventionally, layer labels are not shown, due to table display constraints, and when layer labels are obvious in view of the header and row labels. For example, headers that include names of various cars may obviously represent automobiles. However, often the type of data represented by a header may not be obvious, yet this information may be important for data analysis.
Accordingly, layer labels, when displayed, are temporarily individually displayed via a hover layer that appears upon mouse-over of a header field. Hence, such layer labels are typically hidden. However, this can be problematic for data analysis that requires rapid visual understanding of data presented in a pivot table.